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Triya 15
Transcript Honestly, the rest of the story isn't all that interesting. Essentially, I scoured the settlement for some kind of journal, but all I could find was half-decomposed scrap paper. i suppose it makes sense. It would be difficult to make paper out here, at least in a large scale. The paper they did have was likely used mostly for important things, and they probably brought it with them when they left. Knowing this, however, didn't solve my problem. And of course Elden wouldn't help. We only stayed in the settlement for a few days, but I feel like I learned a lot about the people who lived here before. It seems like they kept it small on purpose. Most of the houses were built at the same time, and few were added afterward. The town couldn't have had more than 1,500 people. It was also a lot simpler than I had expected. Most settlements still use at least some modern technology, but this one had very little from even before The Fall. Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked again. I didn't have the paper to record what I saw there before, but this isn't exactly the place for that. I just wish I could have come here when there were still people. The lives they must have led... Anyway, we only stayed for a few days before heading off, hopefully in the direction of Port Angeles. There was so little to do without writing to distract me, and I began to notice more and more that Elden hardly ever spoke anymore. I guess I'd been too wrapped up in... well, in talking to you that I hadn't noticed the extent to which he's drawn within himself. I tried to talk to him, but he seems to have perfected the one-word response. It didn't hep that he was upset and discouraged. And our clothes were stiff with salt. We walked for a day and a half with hope and the sun as our only guides. I don't think I do well when left to my own thoughts, at least not when they're bottled up inside my head. I don't know how Elden does it. Luck must have been in our favor, because we found Port Angeles. The ruins of non-Beacon cities are even more foreign than those that had Beacons. Husks of buildings loom overhead, but there are no stories-tall walls surrounding them. The skeletal remains of cars litter the streets, but the only human remains have been crushed and pounded flush with dirt, so occasionally you find your boot making contact with an eye orbit staring up at you in vain. The Beacon cities were left well-enough alone, but everything else was looted. I saw it happen. During the Fall, Sennin were sent out of cities to heal and help where we could. I was sent to one of the largest non-Beacon cities in the country, Sacramento. It was... in a word, horrible. In the early days, wave after wave of refugees from San Francisco and San Jose stumbled through the streets, all of their most precious belongings on their backs. When one would fall, a feeble attempt might be made to help them up, but the futile, inevitable progress of the crowd would soon consume them. The Sacramento natives locked their doors and shuttered their windows, but there was no way to keep the disease out. We set up stations all around the city, but we could never even see an end to the lines that formed outside them, and there were so few of us. Many of the people we saw returned days later, and nearly all of them ended up in the mass graves that Elden helped dig on the edges of the city. We stayed for several weeks, trying to help as many as we could, but as time wore on we saw more and more cruelty, and less and less to try to protect. People stole shamelessly and without mercy, and it was hard to even judge them for it. I may never face my own mortality. I can't know the fear or the pain of knowing you will soon die. I'm sorry, it's getting dark and Elden has insisted we use no light tonight. He thinks he saw a bear and doesn't want to attract it. I don't think he knows very much about bears, but he will have his way whether I argue or not. Look at that, I didn't even finish my story. I'm sorry, I promise I'll finish it tomorrow.